Town Square

Town declares moratorium on parking fees

Original post made
on May 22, 2009

As part of ongoing efforts to assist downtown merchants during the economic downturn, members of the Danville Town Council approved a resolution putting a hold on so called "parking in-lieu" fees. Such fees are assessed when a business owner does not have the required amount of parking spaces to service the expected level of clientele at their establishments.

Posted by Bill Carmel
a resident of Danville
on May 22, 2009 at 8:42 am

Judith,

My understanding of the issue is that this resolution only applies to the fees assessed to the Owners of downtown businesses. Hopefully, these fees are used to build more parking. I am afraid that the revenue for the Town that comes from parking violations will stop only when there are no more cars. Not only are parking fines a significant source of revenue for any municipality, they employ people to do this thankless job.

Your comment does raise a good point. The whole idea of "Shopping Danville" in not helped by outrageous fines for simple inattention to time and place. What is needed is a way to distinguish those shoppers who are spending money downtown from the folks who would park in these spaces without bringing revenue to Danville. This is a classic double message. On the one hand, we want people just to congregate and be comfortable with a fun place to be, and on the other hand we need a constant flow of cars to satisfy the merchant's need for cash flow. Find a way to deal with this disconnect and you may make a case to the Town Council and the merchants for eliminating parking tickets. Change in policies only happen when people produce solutions that work for the greater good.

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